In Nigeria, it isn’t only the northeast regions, stronghold of the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram, that have witnessed severe violence. The Middle Belt of the country, which straddles the divide between the largely Muslim north and the majority-Christian south, is also the scene of ever-continuing violence between settled farmers, . . . Read More

A group representing senior Christians in Nigeria has accused the government of trying to Islamise the country. In a statement on 6 September, ‘Jihad in Nigeria: burying the head in sand’, the National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) said jihad threatened the unity of the country. NCEF is composed of a number . . . Read More

Many experts on Nigeria now believe that violence across the Middle Belt, which World Watch Monitor has reported at length, has been responsible for more deaths than Boko Haram. As Emmanuel Akinwotu wrote last year in the New Statesman, the conflict – between ‘indigenous’ settled farmers (mainly Christian) and nomadic . . . Read More

Obscured by Boko Haram’s headlines, violence has also raged further south, in Nigeria’s Middle Belt: a less reported, years-long campaign which experts now believe has been responsible for more deaths than Boko Haram. Militants among the ethnic Fulani, a predominantly Muslim and nomadic population of cattle herders, are suspected of targeting . . . Read More